


Deep Thoughts and Cruel Practicalities

by strikeyourcolors



Series: Control(led) Issues [9]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Arguing, Begging, Betrayal, Consensual Kink, Fight Sex, Insecurity, M/M, Minor Violence, Mirror Sex, Praise Kink, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 07:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikeyourcolors/pseuds/strikeyourcolors
Summary: The Red Hood has left Gotham to return to Bludhaven. Things should be fine, right?  Dick desperately wants to trust that Jason has become a better, saner person, but evidence is mounting up that says exactly the opposite. Things are going from 'fine' to 'much worse'.





	Deep Thoughts and Cruel Practicalities

**Author's Note:**

> Back to this series! I'm so sorry it took this long but the series will be finished with the next (two chapter) installment. I missed this universe so there might be some side parts to it. In case you forgot from last time, go back and read the last little bit. Jason hurt his back, Tim found a recording device in the Cave after he was taken there for treatment, Dick doesn't know what to believe, and that leads us to this point in the story.
> 
> It's a little more plotty and emotional than I ever intended for this series to be. All of you who commented and suggested made that possible and thanks so much for that!

"You seriously think Red Hood agreeing to go back to Bludhaven has nothing to do with the bodies that were fished out of the harbor?" Tim asks him. Tim is giving him that look that means he thinks Dick is crazy. It's like the look he'd had after Dick ate a peanut butter and potato chip sandwich except more serious. This wasn't a matter of Dick eating something that he didn't care for but wasn't poisonous and thus wouldn't assault any systems on his body other than his sense of taste. "Dick, they were-" He stops, looking to the waitress wandering by. It's early in the morning; Dick wonders if the kid has been to bed at all before he has school. Dick remembers a couple of times Bruce took him to a diner for breakfast instead of home to bed. It had been exciting. He was hoping to recreate the experience."They were shot in the head," Tim continues, keeping his voice low as he tears a blueberry out of his muffin and eats it. So much for fun.

"That's not exactly a signature move," Dick argues, dumping an unhealthy amount of syrup on his pancakes. He uses a piece of bacon to mop up the edges of the plate. But he pauses. "Who were they?"

Tim takes a bite of his egg white. He's not eating enough, and what he's eating isn't calorically dense enough. Dick knows it, even from casual observation. He worries, but he doesn't want to seem like he's overly critical. Tim needs the confidence. "Small time dealer. No one significant but he used kids as his mules. Got a couple of them killed, which is how he came to our attention. Then a pimp. Entrepreneur. Owned a brothel. Recorded patrons with underage victims and beat his girls." Tim sips his coffee. He looks much older under the glare of these lights with a chipped cup full of black coffee in his hand. "GCPD could never locate him."

"They don't have that trouble now," Dick points out and drinks his orange juice. It tastes strange with the syrup still on his tongue. He doesn't want to answer right away so he shovels another few bites of breakfast into his mouth. Those do sound like the sort of people Jason would seek out. The type he'd make a special trip to Gotham in order to kill. But Dick can't say they could be redeemed. That they didn't deserve the fate they met.

He stops that line of thinking. He can't afford to continue down it. He can't even muse on the thought that Jason could be guilty. If he believes it hard enough, it might come true. Especially not after what else Tim has found. And Jason _promised_. He swore up and down that he wasn't in Gotham to make trouble. "I was with him the whole time he was here until he hurt his back and decided to go back to Bludhaven."

Tim looks...almost like he pities him. Dick bristles a little but then the teenage Robin rubs his eyes. Dick thinks maybe what he thought was pity was actually exhaustion. He hopes, anyway. He remembers those days, too. Bruce is running this Robin hard. "B suspects," Tim says simply. 

"You said you hid the device you found in the cave from him," Dick replies defensively. Tim doesn't deserve his accusations, or the sharp words. It's just that Dick's not ready to deal with Bruce. Not beyond a few phone calls and...

...and Bruce has been oddly absent from all of this. It's not like him to give any of them space like this. Bruce tends to hover. 

"I did," Tim replies, patiently, like he's the older brother. "But I'm not magic, Dick. I can't just make bodies disappear and I shouldn't have to. He knows the Red Hood was in Gotham. He's not as stupid as you seem to want to believe he is. He's not blind and he certainly hasn't lost interest in you." 

That's dawning on Dick like the sun outside. "He's been watching me," He realizes. "Watching Jay." He looks sharply at Tim, who holds his hands up showing he's unarmed except for the muffin he's still picking apart. It doesn't make him look innocent at all. 

"I'm not spying on you!” Tim prostests. “He actually doesn't want me involved at all in this case. Possibly because you know who tried to kill me, but..." Tim's gaze softens. "Dick, I'm here for you, alright? Just for you. The only reason I know anything is that the files on the computer aren't very secure and-"

"You hacked into the bat computer," Dick says. He's incredulous. He laughs a little and has the pleasure of seeing his little brother start to blush. It's not a subtle blush; he looks kind of like a tomato. "Oh my God, Tim. That's amazing. I can't believe you can do that. You're awesome."

And Tim, bless him, his eyes light up in a way that Dick wished Jason's did when he praised him. The two Robins to follow after him are so different, have been starved in different ways, and Dick can't help but want to pick up the pieces. Even with the dawning horror settling in his mind that he hasn't outsmarted Bruce. He'd thought he was a step ahead of his adoptive father when really he's a step behind. "It's nothing," Tim murmurs, head ducked. "B forgets he's my brother too. I have a right to know what's going on." 

Brothers. That's what Tim thinks this is and it would be sweet if Dick hadn't heard Jason, in his worse off moments, threaten Tim's life just to make Bruce suffer again. Dick always hushes him, always insists that Tim is to be protected. Would Jason want want happened to him to any other kid? "Why hasn't B stepped in yet if he knows?" That's, he ultimately decides, the most important question. 

Tim shrugs. The waitress approaches and plops down the ticket for Dick to pay with a not-so-subtle look at the clock. No doubt actual breakfast regulars will be coming by soon and she wants to free up the table for the rush. "Once again, I'm not magic. I can't tell what he's thinking." 

Dick snorts and starts sorting out money. Enough for the ticket and the tip so he doesn't have to trouble the wait staff any more to run a card or give him change. And so there's no record of him being here. Old habits, especially if Bruce really is paying close attention to him.

"But," Tim continues thoughtfully. "The file said that Nightwing had the case in hand. That Red Hood's violent tendencies hadn't been curbed but his fatal ones had." His voice drops. His hand reaches out and Tim grips Dick's on the table. It's startling; Tim has never been much of a toucher. He was like Bruce in that Dick usually had to approach first and break him into casual hugging. "He thinks you might be in danger. It's why he watches."

It's creepy and invasive. It's Bruce's show of concern. Dick doesn't know what to think of it except his heart is pounding at the implications of what Bruce might know. That his father might have seen him and Jason in more intimate moments. That Batman might have seen Nightwing walk away from Red Hood beating up some thugs without interfering or supervising.

"Just be careful," Tim advises him when they part ways. "Don't get burned. Maybe Jason didn't want to raid our files and sell us out...but he still left that device without telling you."

Dick's been trying not to think of it for weeks. Fortunately, for him, they've been busy weeks. A crisis here. One there. He's been basically all over the globe in a week and Nightwing has been putting his gallery of rogues in order. He hugs Tim around the neck and musses up his dark hair, enjoying Tim's frantic writhing to get away. "I'll be careful, babybird. Cross my heart." 

Tim huffs after he's released, grooming his hair back into some order and straightening his school uniform. "B's going to make a move soon," He advises and looks closer to fifty than fifteen. "I'll try to warn you if I know about it but be ready."

Dick will never be ready for that confrontation. 

~*~*~

Dick thinks best when he's flying. Soaring through the air and letting himself drop again. Spinning with his legs over his head and catapulting his body back up from the balls of his toes. There has never been a time in his life that he remembers where he didn't have this marvelous ability to take flight.

Unfortunately, the sky has no answers, as much as the air around him soothes him. He's known since he started this that it's no fix for Jason. Dick isn't arrogant enough to think he has magical healing sexual powers, though for a minute or two he entertains the idea of how awesome that would be. 

Bruce knows; of that much Dick is certain. He knows about their emotional relationship. He knows about their sexual relationship. He probably is more than aware of his behaviors as Nightwing in regard to the Red Hood. What he can't guess is why Bruce has waited so long to confront him. Of course Bruce has been trying to draw out the conversation, trying to warn him away from Jason. A test? Or something else?

And then there is the matter of Jason himself. Dick feels it better to avoid him, other than brief checks as to his well being. He doesn't want to lie to him. He's not sure he _can_ lie to him any longer. Jason has this way of seeing through him, maybe because the younger man is always looking for a trap.

Something is building. A storm is on the horizon and Dick doesn't see any way to prevent it. Riding it out it is, then. He thought he'd been doing well getting Jason out of Gotham but it's apparently another mistake. Another error. Bruce had liked Jason right where he could see him. If Dick didn't know better he might even think Bruce had been _baiting_ him. 

It has to stop, Dick thinks. He has to stop his sexual attachment to Jason. He has to stop avoiding Bruce. He has to declare he's on no one's side and maybe he and Tim can go stay with Babs for a while until Bruce and Jason work things out. Maybe they'll take Alfred, too. 

Dick comforts himself with the idea of all of them being roommates and maybe having a zany reality show instead of with the very real thought that the fight isn't going to end until Bruce is dead or Jason is institutionalized. 

Jason's not crazy. Not all the time. And, better than that (for Dick, anyway) Jason isolates himself when he is having an episode. He's consciously aware of his grip slipping and Dick isn't sure if he's relieved for that control or sad Jason has built such walls around himself and knows he's not well. The awareness of the loss of your mental faculties must be a difficult burden to bear. 

He goes back to Bludhaven. Back to his life. Back to Jason and rooftop heart to hearts that very carefully don't mention certain aspects of their shared past. Since Gotham, Jason has been distant. He's been moving slower and more carefully and Dick has had to make sure the spine damage isn't worse than Jason led him to believe. A brush of his hand when they moved. A press to Jason's spine when Dick came up behind him. That insufferable smirk Jason had like he knew exactly what Dick was doing. Finally he had decided he was fit just in time for Jason to do a perfect backflip and kick him in the face. That really had proven he was back to normal. 

It had also hurt like a son of a bitch. 

Dick backs off after that. And he swears that Jason taunts him. The man doesn't kill, at least not that he catches tale of, but the injuries he deals out definitely push it. He compound fractures a pimp's leg a minute before Nightwing arrives. He puts a drug dealer in traction and not the light kind Jason had to have for his back to heal. Dick often times has to choose between going after Red Hood and preventing a scene of carnage and fatality and, honestly, the vigilante makes it easier for him to choose the civilians. 

What Tim has said eats away at him. He can keep a secret, but this one feels at peril of his own soul. He tracks Jason to a new, temporary safehouse. A penthouse suite in a hotel, which for Bludhaven means there are maybe slightly fewer cigarette burns on the carpet and it affords the privacy that a visiting mob boss needs. It's not really Jason's style, but he has also made sure that Dick knows where it is. That's as far in invitations as they get. 

Dick lets himself in through the roof. He catches sight of guns all across the bedroom of the place, and he chooses to ignore them. He has to have faith that Jason knows what he's doing. And Jason seems...a little off. He paces. He broods. It's something he's come to realize means his friend is thinking and thinking hard. But that's okay; he's doing that too. 

He can't stand the small talk.

"They found it," Dick says bluntly. The secret tears from his lips like a living being. He wonders how he kept it as long as he did. "The device you dropped in the cave. The one that records conversations and can transmit files." He wants to leave no ambiguity. No way Jason can deny it. But surely Jason knows by now that they did find it; Tim had stopped it from recording anything and, as far as Dick knows, destroyed the device. 

Surprise passes over Jason's sharp features. His eyes widen slightly and his lips part. It's a genuine expression. It's one he's had since childhood and Dick, irrationally, remembers that same look with Jason's lips half parted when he realized he got presents on his birthday. That people actually remembered. It had nearly pulled Dick out of his raging sulk back then as he sat at the kitchen table and asked Alfred why Bruce could never be reasonable. Maybe that's why he remembers it. 

It's nothing so joyous now, however. Surprise does not melt into joy or pleasure. Surprise turns into rage. That open expression that makes Dick's heart hurt turns into something dark that makes him, guiltily, a little afraid. "So that's where it went," Jason muses and his tone would sound casual to anyone not familiar with the deadly violence the hulking man can unleash at the drop of a hat. "The new little Replacement birdy call to tell you all about it?"

Alarm bells are ringing in Dick's head. Bells that have shuddered to life and been quickly silenced for months, approaching a years now. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that you put it there. Why?"

"Oh," Jason replies with a laugh. " _This_ Robin you care about. The second kid in your hand me downs you actually give a fuck over. You actually listen to. You actually love."

There's such venom, such vitriol in his tone that Dick is momentarily taken back by it. "Yeah," he snaps with a flash of his own temper that he's done a very good job repressing up until now. He's had years of practice. "I care about him." Like he should have cared about Jason, he wants to say. Like he was too young and stupid and angry at Bruce for giving away his colors to do. But Jason is a mistake he won't make twice. That Bruce won't make twice. Dick wonders what it's like having your life and death be a cautionary tale. 

Jason's eyes flash green. Dick sees it for only a moment before the younger man punches him. He reels back but his attacker already has the upper hand. Dick might be a better fighter, all things considered, but Jason has him trapped in this hotel suite. Not enough room for many aerial stunts and no floor space to flip away from him. Jason has the high ground and, boy, does he abuse it. Dick is trying to dodge those overly large fists swinging at him when Jason kicks his kneecap. White hot pain explodes from the limb and he screams, channeling that feeling through his body as he grabs a lamp and slams it into Jason's shoulder. He should go for the face. He still can't manage to bring himself to do that because of how much it would hurt them both.

The fight is brutal and yet it's not nearly what either of them are capable of. Dick flips over the couch and kicks Jason in the face as a bit of pay back. Jason tackles him as he tries to lunge for the window. Dick is defending himself, true enough, but he's fighting for more than that. He's fighting Jason for how his trust has been betrayed, for his treatment of a kid who had done nothing but worship the ground he walked on, for the million things that Jason could have done that would have fixed this situation and not put him in the middle. 

"I lost the fucking thing there," Jason snarls at him when he has him pinned to the floor. Spit flies onto Dick's face; the other's mouth is practically an inch away. "It fell out of my pocket. Wasn't even on. Wasn't transmitting."

It's taken at least ten minutes to get to this point. Dick is panting and bloody. He's not sure if it's experience or gut feeling or the blow to his head that makes him, fervently, want to believe Jason is telling the truth. Tim had only mentioned the potential of the device, it was true. Not what it was actually doing. Maybe Tim didn't know. Maybe he didn't want Dick to know.

He wants, more than anything, for Jason to be honest to him. To be able to reciprocate the faith and trust and blind, foolish belief that he knows he has in Jason. “Look at me,” Dick says. Jason's teeth flash in a grimace and he repeats himself, a bit more loudly. “Look at me, Jason. Please.” Maybe the please does it. That green tinged gaze shifts downward. Onto his face, onto his bloody lip, before it meets his eyes. 

Dick prides himself on being a great judge of people. He likes to talk to them. He likes to learn about them. He's great at reading people in ways not even Bruce is. In this moment, gazing into Jason's face, he can't read him and that's terrifying. There's rage. There's pain. Even a flash of guilt. But nothing that lets him know how to proceed. “Are you telling me the truth?” he asks at last, like Jason can't look him in the eye and lie to him. 

“Fuck you,” he replies with a shake of his head, like he's knocking a terrible thought loose before it takes root. There are ghosts in those pretty eyes. “Fuck you and your perfect child status. Fuck you for believing them over me. Always taking their side over mine.” 

“I didn't,” Dick replies. “I didn't take their side.” An old argument. Old words. He's losing him. He can see clearly now that Jason's mind fixates on one thing. _Run away._ He can't let that happen. “I'm on your side,” he says. “Always on your side, Jay. I love you.”

Jason stares at him. Then, before Dick can blink, Jason has him by a fistful of hair and slams his head back against the floor so hard that his vision goes dark. The heavy weight of the other man is suddenly not on top of him anymore and he's being dragged. Upward, pulled by hair and one arm and he can barely get his legs to function enough to get underneath him. Jason's strong and handles him like he weighs nothing at all. 

Dick's vision clears up when a cold surface meets his face. A mirror. The mirrored wall that he had seen earlier in the night. Jason slams the rest of him against it hard enough that it takes his breath away, but his face it almost delicately pressed against it. He isn't going for the disfiguring shots tonight, then. 

His breath fogs up the mirror as Jason's larger frame leans against his back with enough pressure that his ribs ache. “Stupid,” he whispers simply, his lips close enough that the hair on the back of Dick's neck stands on end. “Always so fucking stupid, Dickie. I bet if a stray dog came up and tore a chunk out of your thigh you'd just offer it another bite and tell it that you loved it.”

Dick's not stupid enough to be oblivious to who the dog in this situation is supposed to be. He tries, anyway. “Actually I'd get myself a rabies shot and find the dog a nice home where it could feel safe. Everything deserves a chance and lots of things bite because they're scared; not because they are vicious.” 

Jason freezes. Dick takes the risk and grinds back against him, shifting his hips so his ass is more out. And he feels Jason. Warm and solid and _hard_. The last fact draws a bit of a squeak from his lips because he certainly hadn't been expecting that. Jason has him pinned and has done a good job beating him up, but he's gotten a few painful licks in at his would be opponent as well and he really doesn't get off on pain. 

Dick doesn't know if the erection is proof that hurting him turns Jason on or if it's only his proximity. If his accidental confession of love has fueled the flames or banked them. And Jason, it seems, doesn't know either. 

He moves his face to the side and Jason lets him. He can see his eyes in the mirror, focused on his face. The younger man shifts then, rubs more firmly against him with clear intent. Then he stops. His gaze meets Dick's. Hesitant. There's a striking question in the gaze and in the power he has over Jason once again. All it would take is a shake of his head and Jason would back off. A light nudge and Jason would let him go and spend an evening at the bottom of a bottle and in a pit of self loathing. 

Instead, Dick tips his head to bare more of his neck and leans out even further. “Yes,” He tells Jason. “Please.”

"Stay," Jason orders sharply. "Stay right where I put you."

And what can Dick do but obey? Still, it's difficult. He misses the warmth Jason provides pressed again him. He even misses the insulation of his suit, wadded up on the floor somewhere; the mirror is cold and his nipples are hard and peaked against it. He's staying where Jason put him. Dick has the slightly morbid thought that they could have fixed this. If they all had stayed right where they were when he died, Jason wouldn't be this way. Time had marched on with Jason Todd apparently dead in the ground. But time had just been frozen for him for those years. He had come back to Dick even older and Tim in his place.

How unsettling, at the least, would it be to come home and have it be like you never existed? Of course they had changed. They had all changed. But Bruce in his quest for justice had erected a display case with a dead child's uniform and then tried to pretend it never happened. Dick's had the feeling of disease upon returning to the manor and that's simply from Bludhaven. He can't imagine how difficult it had been for Jason. And, as he's told Bruce in some of their rougher times, it's no wonder that Jason is the way he is. 

Jason isn't the monster that the Joker, or Talia made him. He's not a monster at all, but he's exactly what Bruce made him to be.

Dick lets himself be stripped with a kind of methodical quickness. The suit is torn off and cast aside. The mask follows, and he tugs at Jason enough that the man takes his off as well. Getting Jason naked is a rare treat and he's warm to the touch, a little sweaty from the fight that brought them here, and he doesn't mind a bit. 

"Goldie," Jason calls to him, trying to make his tone teasing but it's still rough from the fight, from the yelling. It makes things low in Dick's body tense. "Stop getting lost in your head. I know it's vast and empty in there but stay with me."

It gets him to smile. Usually insulting his intelligence doesn't do that because he is painfully aware he's probably the dumbest Robin. But the comment is purely Jason. Sane Jason. Angry, but sane. The man he's grown to know. To love. His jaw aches and his lip hurts but he's come to love even those clever insults.

Dick settles with his arms still behind him, upper chest pressed to the mirror. His legs are braced and spread and he's leaning forward to show his ass to best advantage. Not that it actually needs the help. The position is not comfortable. That's probably part of the point. He doesn't want to break the spell of the moment by suggesting they move. He doesn't wand responsibilities to come crashing down. He needs to call Bruce and insist that Jason is innocent (of spying, at least) and that it's all a misunderstanding. He needs to ask Tim to find proof of that. He needs...

But it's not about what Dick needs, in the moment. It's about what Jason needs. His choice is made. Tension bleeds out of his body and he arches more, shifts to a more comfortable angle for his spine that would still make most people ache to hold it. 

Jason's found the lube and the condom. His hand skims down Dick's back. "There we go," He murmurs. "Let go for me." And he shivers. He obeys because he wants that mindless pleasure. He wants the danger of trusting Jason so completely. The sigh turns into a half yelp as Jason's slick finger is inside him a moment later. No preamble. No teasing. Just the press of flesh inside him and he could almost curse that he'd missed the real reason Jason wanted him positioned like this. Less about power, then, and more about functionality. This man wanted him relaxed and exposed.

Jason lives a rather sparse lifestyle; he's had few things that truly belonged only to him. Even now he moves safehouses so often that Dick's never seen Jason in possession of anything nicer than a comfortable, second hand couch or a paperback he's pretty sure cost a quarter somewhere. Jason's never had a taste for luxuries or indulgences. He's always wanted function and practicality. 

Dick doesn't want this to just be functional. A stress fuck. An anger fuck. A way for Jason to ease the tension running through him after their fight and pretend to feel closer to Dick until an hour after when Jason suddenly locks himself down tight all over again. But he has to be cautious. To be smart. That's going to be difficult with his cock filling out and the way Jason expertly curls his finger inside him. For the times they've done this, Jason is a devastatingly quick study. "Nnn. Jason," Dick moans, allowing himself to be a little more vocal and show his appreciation. His consent. It's something to make up for the accusations he has made against him. Jason is a sinking ship, Bruce has told him, but that doesn't mean Dick won't be bailing water out for as long as possible.

A second finger, and a third, find their way inside him before he's truly ready. That tends to happen with Jason in a mood, though he's never actually pushed beyond what Dick can take. He claws at his own wrists with his fingertips, hands still behind his back like they've been bound there. "You want to hear what a good boy you are?" Jason asks, voice dark and honeyed with promise. His hand slaps his flank. "Because I think I want to hear you convince me you deserve this." 

Fingers withdraw from him and Dick moans at the loss. He squirms, hates himself from squirming, and groans when Jason's hands return. He can feel the his face heat up, can see a hint of it in the mirror, as Jason palms his ass. He spreads him, lifts each cheek up with a kind of lewd squeeze and Dick still isn't sure if that's the hottest thing ever or the most embarrassing.

It's also a change in the game plan. Jason's made him beg before but he's never made him sell himself to him to get what he wants. "I want your cock," He offers and the inflection on the end makes him feel like it's a question. Jason starts to laugh. "I deserve your cock," Dick repeats with a little more confidence. "And you? Deserve to fuck me. I'm a great fuck." 

"Tolerable," Jason agrees. “You're a tolerable fuck.” Dick feels something hot and slick against him, between his cheeks, grinding against his skin and oh God that is Jason's erection. Slick, thrusting against his skin, so close that Dick aches. 

"I love it when you fuck me," Dick continues and rubs back against him. He spreads his legs a little wider, tries to catch the right angle to get Jason inside him and is rewarded for his efforts with Jason sinking teeth into his shoulder hard enough that it makes him moan.

Jason's hands move. Press the flesh he's holding together, around his cock, and Dick feels used. So used, so perfect. A toy, something for Jason to get off on and nothing more. He wants him to use him more than he wants anything else. 

"Christ," Jason says and that's when Dick realizes he's said at least some of it out loud. His brain to mouth filter isn't the best under even normal circumstances and it has no chance when he's being wound up like this. He can feel Jason's dick buck and twitch against him. "Well if you're going to die without it. I didn't think you were suck a cockslut."

He hears the tear of the condom wrapper and he feels like he barely has time to blink before the blunt head of Jason's cock at his hole. He presses in and Dick hisses out a breath. It's a stretch. A light flash of pain where Jason hasn't prepped him well enough because Jason is _thick_ but that's also what makes it feel so incredible. There's no immediately slamming in. 

"Losing to me makes you tight," Jason tells him, voice perfect and sinful near his ear. He pushes bit by bit inside him and it seems like he has such perfect control that Dick wants to see him. But positioned as they are, he can't look at Jason's face. Unless...

Dick disobeys. He moves so the flats of his palms are against the cool glass of the mirror and he can urge Jason a step back. He can look into that reflective surface and find Jason's face easily. His lower lip is held between his teeth, bright red from being worried that way. There's concentration on Jason's face, in the slow press of his hips. Dick feels proud. Proud that he can make Jason struggle for control this way. Proud Jason doesn't want to hurt him. Proud that Jason can own him so thoroughly without even meaning to do so and that Dick is way less worried about it than he should be. 

He waits until Jason is fully inside him. It's torture. Dick's legs are trembling and his cock is fully hard by the time his ass is pressed to Jason's thighs. The flash of pain, the way Jason is heavy against his back, probably turns him on way more than it should. 

"God, Jay," Dick whispers, tightening his muscles just to hear Jason groan. "You're so good at this. Good to me. Perfect." And he can see the flash of teeth in the mirror as Jason tries to reconcile his action with his thoughts.

Fingers curl around his hips and Dick arches his back, stretching his palms up the mirror. But he's careful not to lose sight of Jason. And for a moment, Dick does just admire him. Jason's scarred, like the rest of them. But Jason is also someone that Dick had never imagined he'd be. 

"So _big_ ," Dick purrs, tossing his head back. "Your shoulders. Your chest. Your cock. And the way you shoot...I hate guns and it makes me hard." He shifts, adjusts for the tight grip Jason has on his hips now. "So many times just watching you. Saw you shoot out a flashlight from across the room and...fuck, Jason. it made me so hard. I can't do anything like that." Maybe with a lot of practice and the right projectile but Jason made it seem so easy. 

"You saw that?" There's a shy look on Jason's face. Surprisingly, for someone who is fucking him. He isn't pounding him without finesse, but he's not dragging out the encounter either. "Easily impressed, Nightwing." He sounds almost dismissive. 

But Dick knows better. He can feel the way Jason's hips buck against him. He knows he's going to have little finger-shaped bruises on the soft part of his belly next to his hipbones where Jason squeezes him a little more tightly every time he pays him a compliment. 

"You're amazing," Dick says simply. And he lifts his gaze, holds Jason's in the mirror. "Just look at yourself. Not...aah...not a little scrapper any more." 

Jason thrusts in hard enough that it makes him yell in the best kind of ways. He's held steady from behind his prick is hard and leaking, curved almost painfully because of the position he's in. But Jason looks in the mirror. Jason looks at himself and Dick doesn't see rage or hostility in his expression. 

"Incredible," He breathes. Jason pushes into him hard enough to rob his lungs of air. His fingers slide for purchase against the glass and the other man _takes_ him. There's the sound of flesh on flesh, the slap of his balls against him that thrills a lewd and dirty piece of his psyche. Jason is fucking him like he's not even a person and he's urging it on. Complimenting his lover for his efforts. 

It's driving him out of his mind. The stimulation. The way Jason's face lights up when he breathes a word of praise. There's still that mistrust there, something buried deep in those blue eyes that reminds Dick that Jason has never trusted people in general. But there's something else. A spark. A certain roll to Jason's hips or curve to his fingers like he's holding Dick and never going to let him go. 

“Jerk off, Golden Boy,” Jason's voice is strained. Dick groans and it turns even louder as one of those large hands lets go of his hip, digging into his hair and pulling his head back with a sharp yank. “Let me see you make yourself come for me if I'm so wonderful.” 

It's nothing Jason hasn't seen before. Still, it makes Dick's heart pound and his cheeks flush. Dick moves one of his hands off the mirror, wraps his fingers around his cock and he feels more than hears the low rumble of pleasure that Jason gives. He can see in the mirror too, Dick realizes. He can see how he's touching himself. 

He's not going to last like this. He needs Jason to get off with him. “Going to make me come,” He informs him, voice almost a whine. “You always...always do. Even when I'm alone. When I touch myself. I think of you fucking me like this.” Jason gives a hard thrust into him and Dick yells, bucks his hips into his pumping fist. “Oh God, Jason. Oh fuck!”

He comes before he means to, clenching down around the length inside him and biting his lip hard enough that it starts to bleed again. He sees Jason's eyes flit to the bit of blood in the mirror, and then Jason is pounding him. It drags Dick's orgasm out, makes him yell even more as pleasure crests and breaks and rolls over him. Then Jason is shoving hard enough to bring Dick to his tiptoes, gripping his hip hard enough that bones creak and coming into the condom. 

Dick feels thoroughly wrecked. Jason pulls out and gives him a bit of a patronizing pat of the ass and he can only groan a protest as he sinks to his knees on the carpet. He sees Jason walk into the bathroom like that bastard's body isn't a giant bruise. A moment later a damp washcloth hits him and Jason smirks. “Clean yourself up. I'll get you some painkillers.” 

Dick at least has the sense left in him to clean his face first. Bloody injuries enough to make himself look presentable and then he wipes down fingers and his belly where he came. It was almost like his own ejaculation was secondary to pleasing Jason. He's not sure at the purse of pride he feels at that, but he's relieved when Jason sits on the floor next to him. He leans against him and, amazingly, drops a kiss against the side of Dick's face and he feels like his heart might explode. 

A low beeping breaks their companionable silence. Dick groans a little. "Communicator," He explains though he doubts Jason is ignorant of that. "Give me a second." Because, no matter how determined he is that this is his time with Jason, he can't ignore it. It's not like he gets social calls on his Nightwing costume. For the most part, anyway. 

He fishes out the actual unit from a hidden pocket, slipping the earbud in. It's easier than applying the mask and getting that situated and that's where he's normally accessing his communication points. "Nightwing," He says after he taps it. 

It's Robin. Tim. "B is in trouble," is what he says. No preamble, no beating around the bush. Dick wonders if Bruce gave Tim permission to contact him and tell him this and decides within a second that it doesn't matter. Tim is contacting him now because he feels the need and while part of being a Robin is following orders, part of it is also knowing when Batman's orders are liable to get him or you both killed. Dick feels a rush of panic, of worry, because things must be bad for him to be contacted. But there's pride and relief behind it because Tim is smart. Smart enough to know when to summon help and that's going to keep him alive in the long run. He can't say the same for former Robins.

"What happened?" Dick asks and starts to get dressed. He needs to get back in the suit but first he has to bother with a million little things and safety catches before he can actually slide into the black fabric. He must not keep the worry out of his voice very well; Jason's head shoots up from where he was resting with it pillowed on his arms and his eyes glint with a new kind of interest. He's like a tiger that just had something interesting thrown in its pen.

"Mass break out at Arkham," Robin reports. There's a huff and the sound of metal on flesh. Tim's fighting; he must have his staff out. "We thought we had most of it contained or we would have called earlier." Code for the fact Batman didn't want Nightwing to know he needed help. The man was a really dark, cynical, island. But Dick decides he can be mad about that later. "The Joker is loose. Disappeared before anyone realized he was gone and somehow he's organized."

"The Joker?" Dick demands, finally able to cover himself. Being clothed feels important for even this conversation, let alone the action he's going to take. Or at least not naked. Dick's totally forgotten what vigilante is in the room with him and what fixation he has. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Jason moving around and putting on his clothes. "What is he organized to do?" 

"Kill us!" Robin yells back. "Batman is hurt, Nightwing. Badly enough that I can tell he's injured but he won't stop. He ran ahead and I can't even get him to slow down." Tim is starting to panic. Tim never panics, that Dick's seen. Not since those early days when he was still learning to wear his colors. Dick knows the panic in a way that makes his chest ache with familiarity; he can remember all the times Batman continued on even with injuries that could prove to be fatal. He remembers fighting, half his mind on what he would do if Batman suddenly dropped and Robin had to get them both out safely. He can argue with Bruce about putting kids on the streets in costume all day and night, but he's never managed to give voice to how traumatizing it had been to him. The fact that he could lose his parents in an accident and then lose Bruce to a villain. He'd had nightmares about Bruce being killed and his mind back then had way more fodder for how it could happen than any kid's should have.

He hasn't dared ask Jason if he had similar dreams. He's not sure he can ever ask Tim. One has a huge issue with abandonment and death is the ultimate abandonment. The other would probably be too rooted planning for it just in case and would drive himself to a panic. All of them so different. All of them so concerned with the life of one man. 

"Where are you? I'm coming, Robin. Okay?" That's all Dick can offer as he pulls on his boots and pats himself down, checking for all his equipment. He wants to be reassuring but he also doesn't want to coddle his younger sibling.

"The tunnel under the docks," Robin pants. "Left at the first fork. Right two branches after that. Right again three after. Immediate left." And has he memorized it? Of course. Robin needs an escape route. "I'll keep the communicator open in case tracking doesn't work. A is on the way." 

"The docks," Dick repeats. He looks in the mirror, finding catches and making certain the costume itself is presentable. He wants to start running, to dive out the window and just get to Tim and Bruce as quickly as possible but he knows the risk posed by doing that literally half dressed. "I'm not far, alright? I will get there, Robin. I promise. I'll be there soon." And, in the reflection of the glass, he catches sight of Jason again. 

There's not a specific indicator on his face. Not exactly, or at least not one Dick can read. It's the complete lack of expression that gives Dick pause. Jason's face is handsome, knife sharp and rugged as ever, but there is not a hint of emotion on it. Not a bit of feeling in those blue eyes. "I have to go," Dick tells him like that's not obvious. There's not even a flicker of response and it makes him tense, makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. "Jay?"

Turning to see him face to face isn't any better. If Dick didn't know it was entirely illogical he would protest that this isn't the face he kissed minutes ago. This isn't the body he worshiped. This isn't the man grown out of a boy Dick once knew. This is no one. This is a shell that just looks like Jason Todd. Dick can't spare the time to work this out, to comfort him. He gives him nothing more than the brush of fingers on Jason's forearm. "Hey. I wouldn't leave if I didn't have to."

"Yeah," Jason agrees. The word is monotone. No snark. Nothing. "Turn around. I'll get the catch in the back." 

He's talking. It's enough for Dick who gives him a tight smile and turns around. "Thanks. I'll come back, Jay." He's not sure Jason needs the reassurance but it never could hurt. Something is wrong and the date of their next meeting is usually the best guess he has.

"You won't." Jason's voice is soft. Not a whisper, just...soft. Low enough that Dick almost doesn't hear it. Maybe he just doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want to think Jason would be cruel like that. 

"What?" He freezes in place, fingers pressing the ridges of his mask to make certain it is completely flush against his skin. 

"You won't come back," Jason tells him like a prayer. Like a threat. "Because you're not going." 

Dick sees him move in the mirror, but he's not quick enough. In a normal situation he would be faster. He _is_ faster than Jason. But not like this. Not with his back turned, and Dick knows he's weak to Jason. Jason makes him weak, because Jason makes him trust. "Don't-" He protests, his brain registering all at once that there is a taser in Jason's hand and that the defenses on his suit are off. 

He can't even finish the sentence before Jason fires. The barbs tear into his skin but that's the barest recognition of pain before electricity surges through him. Dick drops. 

He's half aware of Jason moving over him what feels like hours later though he knows it's only been a few seconds. Dick's heart is hammering, undamaged by the current running through the meat of his shoulder. His limbs are twitching. Jason's shot him with enough volts to disable him but not enough to do serious damage. Not to him, anyway. Dick's mind instantly leaps to Tim. To Bruce. To the Joker hiding in the tunnels. "Promised," Dick whispers. Hopes he whispers when he can't control his lips or his throat or anything else. Jason leans over, uses a fist to grip his head and haul it up. "I _promised_ Robin." 

He must be making some sense because Jason drops him. Dick's head contacts the floor without him even attempting to slow it down. "If Batman's promises mean nothing to Robin," Jason begins. "Why should Nightwing's?"

Dick wants to scream. Wants to lash out at Jason. Wants to tell him that every cruel thing said about Red Hood is exactly right. He wants to yell that his father and his brother could _die_ in that tunnel waiting for him to get there and now he can't. That another Robin might be gone too young and the Robin who died will be the one to blame. He can't voice it. He can only glare at Jason with tears in his eyes and make an agonized, pitiful, weak little noise. 

"Don't worry," Jason says and puts on his mask. "I'll go in your place. Hard to pass up an opportunity like this." Gloved fingers come down. Dick feels them against his cheek, brushing away the tears that have leaked out of his eyes. Jason's head tilts and Dick thinks there's something like regret on his features, but he might only be imagining it. 

Jason's hands move again and there's nothing but darkness. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. But maybe not really. This is going somewhere, I promise. 
> 
> Questions? Comments? Prompts? Related to this or something entirely different? Drop them below or [here](https://strikeyourcolors.tumblr.com/ask)!


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